When I was about twelve
I began to see my future
as a ruthlessly effective
overpoweringly sublime advocate for justice
as global peace outcomed and measured,
As a courtroom drama officer
of the U.S. multicultural Court EcoSystem,
A flaring hot attorney
of the U.S.
and global green
legal testosterone-preferred system.

When I was about sixteen,
I began to question the resilience
of Win/Lose ecological and theological partial-rapture Dreams.
I wanted to belong
in a more resilient WinWin restoration
of local through global peace through ecojustice
and how could I do that
in a Win/Lose punishment egosystem
designed to avoid
or at least ignore
Loser predator and Loser prey’s ultimate EarthTribe outcomes,
pathological death and dying degeneration?

When I was about twenty
I began to see myself
as a great preacher and teacher
of WinWin co-redemptive multicultural
and permaculturally perennial religion
evolving straight through reincarnate cultures
ourselves.

But, how could I become that sainted preacher
of rainbow natural and spiritually timeless integrity
as an uncommitted agnostic,
a mere investigative journalist
rather than an active subject of history’s grand full-voiced stage,
or passive object of Win/Lose greed and lusting culture?

I lack sufficient articulation
within any one integrity path,
one Paradise garden polypathic,
one walk within God’s harmonic matriarchal newborn voices,
speaking creation
through naturally diversifying generations,
Advocating spiritual renewal
restoring WinWin revolutions
across every overt and pervert and divert system
in every sacred land?

When I was about twenty-four
I felt sufficiently redeemed
as a green gay prophet
of sensory revolutionary WinWin experience,
with some Win/Lose rapacious and tragic defeating compromises
with Truth
acidically associated WinWin kinships
with Earth’s diversely sheltering lights
and rhythmic patterns
of 4Dimensioned dynamic habitats
developed through cooperatively systemic relationships.

When I was about 64
I began to understand
how miserable I would have been
as a Win/Lose advocate
of U.S. violently punishing elite entitlements
for an anthrocentric legal system
with no orthodox health v pathology insight,
little cooperative ecological hope,
bad mono-elitist inaccessible entitlement toward MisTrust
that once we enter God’s Great Patriarchal CourtRoom
anyone could possibly become integrally healed
for and by and of and with profoundly accessible
Win/Win experiential love
for Ego co-arising therapeutic Eco-justice
inside as outside habitat
of sainted green advocates.

Yesterday my attorney once again patiently reminded me
Legal battles are not fought to win,
they invite us to not lose any more than we already have,
now that the battle lines are so impatiently drawn.

I wrote a sad but true urban legend called “Dillen and the DMV” last week.
Here follows an update.

Background Review:

One of my health care employees, Dillen, has wicked ADD, borderline intelligence, not qualifying for disability supports, which are few
and those few minimal at best anyway,
but also challenged by things like getting to work on the right day at the right time,
challenged by processing verbal communications,
whether written or spoken more slowly than Business As Usual pace and pattern would permit,
challenged with struggles to establish and maintain healthy positive social relationships,
much more challenged by intimacy,
so often settling for companionship that does not foster mutually therapeutic co-mentoring,
challenged by his felt urgency for speed while driving,
challenged by States Attorneys who persuade him it’s OK to accept guilty as charged
for driving 45 in a 35 mph zone on his way to work,
never mind that so were all the cars in front of and behind him,
not to worry that this will inevitably result in a 3-month suspension of his license
because he can get a Work Permit,
except, oops,
never mind,
the DMV will not give Work Permits to suspended drivers
with more than three moving violations,
encouraged by State Prosecutors to go right ahead,
send in that Work Permit application
with his $100 nonrefundable fee
because the DMV is really all about punishing DUIs,
of which Dillen has none
because he doesn’t drink
because, in part, he knows it is bad for his mental health,
especially his chronic issues with depression.

In “Dillen and the DMV” I write to the DMV Commissioner,
the Chief States Attorney, and the Attorney General
about this series of unfortunate events.

Update:

I hear back from the DMV.
This letter patiently reviews Dillen’s multiple infractions.
Two involve having others in his car with marijuana or concomitant paraphernalia,
(why not just “supplies” or “equipment”?)

“Marge, did you order the paraphernalia for the copier machine yet?”
Word choices in the public sector often distract me.

but Dillen was not charged with driving stoned,
because he wasn’t.
He was the designated driver for his “friends”
who did not have their Medical Marijuana cards on them.

Then there was the time he might have been going 35 or 40 and hit black ice,
totaled his car
which ended upside down,
for which the local police felt they must issue some form of moving violation,
after all, we do have those towing charges
and the need for all those emergency folks to stand out in the freezing ice storm,
and there are these two drug-related violations on his driving record
so he was probably stoned anyway, right?

And then there was this time,
when Dillen was pulled over
ostensibly for speeding,
but really this was about driving on a suspended license
without a Work Permit
which he didn’t have because
(1) DMV didn’t have a current address to send him his notice,
so he didn’t know he was driving on a suspended license, and
(2) no one had told him,
including the Police Officer who pulled him over,
there is this Work Permit thing
which would have covered his butt
on this particular adventure in high speed suburban crime.

However, this letter from the DMV Director of Programs leaves out some details,
as does my summary.
Then the Program Director reassures Dillen and I of her concern for Dillen’s mess,
which someone else might have called unemployment
and yet another round of couch-surfing homelessness,
but CT’s pesky State Statutes wouldn’t allow her to refund his application fee,
and, besides,
the application form says right on there that it won’t be refunded
even if the application is rejected

Apparently for reasons that remain in the shadow of the public eye.
My two page letter was too subtle for government comprehension
of our own collective abuse and neglect.
She confirms the DMV does have explicit standards for rejecting applications,
including more than three moving violations,
but fails to apologize for designing her Program’s communication plan
to be sure that disproportionately young urban minority low-income males
with mental health and self-medication issues
would be fleeced of their last $100
ripped out of their hungry pockets
to apply for a Work or Education Permit
that State Statutes prohibit her,
so sadly,
from handing out like mother’s milk to a starving baby.

She also does not speculate about why State Prosecutors Dillen has met
are all apparently unaware of stipulated public, but effectively private, criteria for rejecting
pricey applications.

She also fails to mention what she might do to correct this situation
of not providing transparent public information
in a way that allows respected residents of the State of CT
to make a fully informed decision about wasting their money
by further investing in the future miserable outcomes
of shoddy DMV Programs.

She also does not explain where we,
the tax-payers of CT,
were when concerns about the need for job security,
especially for those in hard-to-employ populations,
where we were when needs for food and housing,
healthy wants for continuing education and training,
including the need for continuing education and training,
including the need for reasonable transportation,
even in the winter,
where we all were when these were not being weighted sufficiently against risks,
allowing licensed drivers with complex histories
to continue on their journey
the best they can.

Personally, I know Dillen responds much better to a warm hug,
a patient smile,
and expressed appreciation for continuing to improve,
and encouragement to continue with work
and sticking with a healthy daily routine,
which does not include speeding,
even if everyone around him is racing to nowhere good.

Yesterday I was mesmerized for several hours by a TV series
“Underground”
about the Railroad prior to the U.S. Civil War.
A champion anti-slavery attorney
confesses to his Northern wife,
as a younger attorney he used to settle estates,
including estates of slave-holders,
which sometimes led to the awkwardness of arranging for resale of people,
families,
often resulting in the tearing of children from their mothers’ arms,
and other similar heinous crimes against nature
and mental health.

For some reason
I kept thinking about that clerk at DMV,
reading Work Permit applications,
after depositing the enclosed nonrefundable $100,
looking at the high security publicly invisible list of reasons not to help
depressed people living mostly in their cars
have a modestly better chance at life,
as if what is a right for him or her
on his or her way to work and home again,
is a too luxurious privilege for a fragile at-risk criminal population,
enslaved by their need to self-propel their freedom futures.

RE: Some apparent non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act; common courtesy, civil respect; freely accessible pursuit of health, happiness, and prosperity

I don’t know where the States Attorney Officers and the administrators of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) were hiding when the Americans With Disabilities Act issued regulations protecting us from things like bullying, intimidation, failure to disclose information, discriminating to the disadvantage of those who have more than their fair share of disadvantages pursuing those values our Constitution explicitly mentions as meriting our mutual protection.

One of my employees now has a five year troubled history with Officers of Other People’s Peace and the DMV. The latest episode is a denial of his application for a Work Permit, submitted with a nonrefundable $100 application fee, which he can ill afford, especially given this denial requesting the great privilege of driving himself to work during the duration of his currently suspended driver’s license.

How his license became suspended is a long and troubling history of miscommunication between DMV and State Attorneys who seem to assume it is their job to represent the healthiest interests of everyone in the State except the one resident they are currently fleecing, but also troubles between Dillen’s hyper-deficited mind and right foot.

A quick skim of the American With Disabilities Act might cause reasonable people to take the position that Dillen should either receive the Work Permit that the State Attorney told him he would get if he would simply bother to apply, or have his application fee refunded. After all it does seem difficult to justify he received fair value for his $100 investment in a public system that has at best ignored, and at worst messed with, his private system, getting through each day and night without further suicidal ideation.

This past May, the State’s Prosecuting Attorney was a surprisingly happy young person, probably not all that long a member of the Bar, and it was getting late in the afternoon on a perfectly lovely late Friday afternoon. She came close to begging Dillen to pay a bargain basement reduced moving violation fee of just $400 if he would just agree to cancel his date with the apparently beleaguered, and perhaps not in such a great mood, judge. In fact, if he would sign up for a guilty as charged notice going to the DMV, so they could suspend his license yet again, but not to worry because they would surely jump out of their collective skins to give him a free pass to drive to work and school whenever he needed, because after all we are all good people and we want those good things to be happening in your life, if he would sign up for this line of bullshit right now, she would knock off another $100 because she could see he was such a cooperative kinda guy and wouldn’t it be nice to get out of here and enjoy the rest of his day, if not maybe quite so much his life?

She didn’t mention any problem about now having 7 violations on his DMV record so investing $100 in the Worker Permit application would be delusional, at best. She didn’t mention that AfricanAmerican 20-year-old Dillen, driving a beat-up looking van in a rather lavishly comfortable ecopolitical environment, had cars in front of him and behind him also going 45 mph, but apparently he was the only one unaware he was driving on a suspended license, because, after all, how could the DMV send him a notice through the mail that would actually get to him—although email would have most certainly worked—due to his nomadic ways.

So, yes, Dillen has more than three moving violations, but probably would not, if he had been told, upon his first Suspension, that he could apply for a Work Permit to drive despite Suspension. This was news to him, as he was about to begin his third Suspension, although he has yet to receive his first Suspension Notice.

Apparently no one, except perhaps the person whose digital signature appears at the bottom of the Denial?, knows about this three strikes and you are out of a $100 non-refundable application fee. He saw no notice specifying possible reasons for denial. Nothing in red, or even black, ink saying: WARNING, If you have four or more moving violations do not waste your money!

Yesterday, Dillen had an appointment with yet another State Attorney. This, a few hours before receiving the denial notice from DMV. When Dillen told him that he was waiting to hear back from DMV about his application for a Work Permit, this Attorney too was remarkably sanguine, saying something like “Look, you have no DUI on your record, we want to get you on the road for work and school.” So they continued his case, hoping this latest Suspension would be over, license restored, and Dillen could move on, put this self-propelling mess behind him.

Dillen, State Attorneys, and I are all surprised and disappointed to learn of this covert restriction on issuing Work Permits. And I am his employer. Or was, but now that he has no way to get to work or pay his rent, I suppose my reaction was supposed to be: Well, who’s next? I believe you should give him his permit or at least refund his extorted application fee. What utter stupidity to increase homelessness and risks of serious mental health issues when we could simply issue more Work Permits!

Not to blow this out of all reasonable proportion, but to add larger and longer perspective, this denial of Dillen’s application for a Work Permit is only the latest episode in his five-year troubled history with driving safely and responsibly as part of his moving into independent adulthood profile. Dillen’s level of sensory-neural challenges and his motivation to live a reasonably accommodated life, without intimidating-bullying Police Officers and inscrutable labyrinthine DMV communication issues, and fee extortions that could not possibly pass any discriminatory effect legal challenge, are concerns we might all approach with better implemented concern and integrity.